What is good about SenZar?

I blame the fact I'm even asking on two things: Spinachcat's post on the Palladium Open House, and Jeff's blog on Lords of Creation.

Anyway.

I found this here old thread, posted when the dust had settled, and including a link to one of those intolerably long & self-indulgent Sartin reviews.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=326

I take away from all of this that while at one point SenZar's authors were rightly dismissed as silly jerks, the game is fully playable and the writing is actually engaging and funny... and not even involuntarily so. In other words, SenZar is precisely NOT (just) for 14-year-olds... which I suspect is what fueled the hate--the fact that you couldn't dismiss it after all.

Is this an accurate hunch?

Also, given one has Rifts, why would one play SenZar?

Count me among the interested. They're fairly cheap out there, and from Sartin's admittedly poison-pen review, he had to admit the rules had some merit to them.

My question to the folks who may have a copy:
How does SenZar rate as as an over the top, beer n' pretzels fantasy powergame?

SenZar is awesome.  It's one of the most mechanically coherent but complex systems for fantasy I've ever seen.  The design is tight.  Everything in the book seems tailor made for kicking ass while some heavy metal guitars are wailing in the background.  Rifts has much more sci-fi hardware in it, but I find SenZar to be a better system.  And the rules for becoming gods are hardwired into the system.

For me, if I was setting aside 3.5 for my next high-power freakout campaign, SenZar and Rifts would both be on the short list.  I'd pick SenZar if I had access to multiple copies for player reference and if I intended to run a Rules As Written game where the players were challenged to beat the system.  It's not beer-n-pretzels as written.  You are meant to take time in tricking out your character and players are supposed to abuse the rules to their own ends.  If I wanted something less rules-intense and more seat-of-the-pants, I'd go with Rifts.

(The rest of that short list would probably be OD&D/Arduin, World of Synnibarr, and Lords of Creation, BTW.)

I really like the SenZar core rulebook. The monster book is a bit of a letdown.

The rules are excellent for a game of its type. I think one of the designers is a statistician or at least a math major and it shows. 3.x does steal some of the game's thunder but the guys who wrote this game seemed to get a lot of the tricks that came out later in D&D3 and M&M. It's tight.

Apparently they overhyped it on the internet before publication, and this behavior is actually what fuels a lot of animus towards it. Well, that and maybe some sort of disdain for (or shame for past participation in?) heavy metal culture. The game is metal.

I guess it's a little cartoonish, but isn't that what you'd want for what jreints describes above?

If you're willing to do some of your own work with a good base (the way you would have with any older game, really) I think SenZar is a good system for heavy metal fantasy powergaming, and actually the mechanics are strong enough that you could change the color to 'standard fantasy' if you wanted to do a little work.

Quote from: CalithenaThe monster book is a bit of a letdown.

I felt the same way.  The monsters were not gonzo enough, the godly types were kinda lame, and it was a pain in the ass to track down a copy.

SenZar is RIFTS(C)(R)(TM) and Arduin in an age that no longer believed RPGs like RIFTS(C)(R)(TM) and Arduin could be enjoyed by proper people.

Quote from: MelanSenZar is RIFTS(C)(R)(TM) and Arduin in an age that no longer believed RPGs like RIFTS(C)(R)(TM) and Arduin could be enjoyed by proper people.

Which should of course be consider the highest form of bullshit. I think I'll just buy myself a copy of SenZar when I get the scratch together.

Quote from: MelanSenZar is RIFTS(C)(R)(TM) and Arduin in an age that no longer believed RPGs like RIFTS(C)(R)(TM) and Arduin could be enjoyed by proper people.

Excellent (R) summary (TM)!

Bumping this thread because my question is perhaps too esoteric to deserve its own thread.

I'm a fan of various things about SenZar...the currency system is nice, good power points system, nice caster/non-caster balancing (even warriors get spells in SenZar), lots of funky weapon materials, quick and dirty d20 roll mechanics. A pretty good system, actually. No comment on the monsters book since I don't have that.

Anyway, I've been rereading it a bit recently and one thing that does puzzle me lurking under the surface...I don't know if anyone out there has any useful insights here but I've noticed a few biblical references in it of all places e.g.
*"Golgothans" (the Predator race) - a reference to Golgotha, the place of skulls where Jesus got nailed up (I think).
*"Nazar Ethans" (i.e. guys from Nazareth) created by the "mad Eternal and Lord of the Pit"...Gabriel. (as in, I guess, the Archangel).

So what's up with that...? Anyone have the book and enough theology background to translate a hidden message here...?

I suspect the theology is almost as deep as a black metal album cover.

Well, maybe =P

Though the author's CV does claim he's a former catholic altar boy...among other things..
http://www.tfnn.net/forum/index.php?topic=73838.0

He also speaks Egyptian, which would be useful if he was to travel back in time.

Actually that's probably what he learned it for.

Yeah, this game never even registered on my radar.

RPGpundit

You can tell its good because rpgnet hated it. (Well, it works for me, in most cases)

I kind of wish the creators would rerelease it on .pdf to get it some exposure but they've presumably left the industry.  Even the senzar.com website is down now, though its still on the Wayback Machine.